Peru in the nineties witnessed an economic crisis that transformed the middle class; average folks, caught between presidential thievery and Shining Path terrorism, struggled day and night just to put some class back in the middle. The moonlighting job of choice? Taxi driving. Honigmann returned to her native country to capture the combination of resilience and resignation in the Peruvian soul, what a poet termed “metal and melancholy.” The phrase rings true for these part-time hacks navigating Lima's congested streets. They are in medical research and international trade, they are policemen and teachers, actors and poets, single mothers and worried fathers, abandoned lovers. And they are philosophers, all. Taking a backseat to her subject, with the meter running, Honigmann's form of provocation is sheer persistence; she's not satisfied until the men weep and the women laugh out loud, as you may, too. Yet, you have to wonder-if everyone is a cabbie, who are the fares?